Drone too loud, how to quieten?

Patrick D'Arcy · Post by **Patrick D'Arcy** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 2:07 pm

Do any of you cowboys or cowgirls know how to quieten a drone reed that is out of balance, volume wise, with the rest of a set?

Thanks,

Patrick.

wydeboar · Post by **wydeboar** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 2:23 pm

I have had a bit of luck inserting a sleeve into the bore of the drone. This can be plastic drinking straw or rolled paper. You probably want to work from the reed end to ensure that the drone will still maintain a tapered bore.

On the bass drone, better glue a little piece of thread or something on so you can easily extract it if you don't like the effect. The others can be poked out from the other end if necessary. I shouldn't admit this, but I have shoved a wide piece of wide drinking straw from McDonald's into the middle section of bass drone from the other end (slide end) and it actually made it a little quieter and a little more stable - don't know why, go figger.

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 2:27 pm

Put one of these in your pipecase, that should quiet things down a bit.

Ted · Post by **Ted** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 2:40 pm

Shorten the tongue using the bridle. If this sharpens the pitch too much for the tuning slide, add weight to the tip of the tongue to flatten it. Geoff's drone bores probably don't need modification, so work with the reed rather than rushes.

Ted

Pat Cannady · Post by **Pat Cannady** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 2:45 pm

Patrick D'Arcy wrote:Do any of you cowboys or cowgirls know how to quieten a drone reed that is out of balance, volume wise, with the rest of a set?

Thanks,

Patrick.

I hope you're trying to quiet down your concert set, not your B. The B set is FINE, trust me

I have to concur that a roll of paper or drinking straw inserted into the bore of the drone helps a little bit. David (or was it Benedict?) put a bit of rolled paper in the bari drone on my D set, it helps balance the volume of the middle drone a bit better. Make sure you've got lots of room left on the standing joint tenon, otherwise you won't be able to bring the offending drone back up into tune. Of couse you can probably guess that.

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 4:01 pm

I'm thinking that the size of the exit hole is partly what controls volume at the one end (I realize it should be the same as the bore), and like Ted says, the tongue at the other. It wouldn't take much to narrow the exit hole slightly, of the tenor and baritone, without making the reed clap shut. If it's the bass drone, the sounding chamber (a hollow puck) could also make that drone seem louder.

Interesting that just placing a 6" x 6' hollow cardboard tube up to a 6" speaker will increase the amount of bass volume coming through. Same with a 6" x ?' PVC pipe placed under a wooden bar on a bass marimba. It increases the volume and deepens the tone, giving it carring power.

Kevin L. Rietmann · Post by **Kevin L. Rietmann** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 1:38 am

Make a new reed, Pat. You're a big boy. Or you could have that Donovan guy make you 50 of 'em!
If the design sucks the 'ol drinking straw trick works. Richard Butler recommends it for smallpipes. Or a different material: Liam O'Flynn uses an elder reed for his bass, to quiet it down.

Patrick D'Arcy · Post by **Patrick D'Arcy** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 12:37 pm

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Kevo, this is a new reed. I just made it last weekend. I was having terrible trouble with my old tenor drone reed, it'd take atleast 30 mins to warm up and then you'd have to keep it going to keep it happy. This new one is bang on... not too loud but it could be a shade quieter. The set is going great though and now that this reed is in there too it's encouraging as I don't have to make my wife play them for 30 minutes first

Thanks again for your collective input,

PD.

djm · Post by **djm** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 1:44 pm

So you're saying you've taught your wife to warm your bag up by squeezing it for thirty minutes?

djm

Patrick D'Arcy · Post by **Patrick D'Arcy** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 1:53 pm

She's a good wife.

Royce · Post by **Royce** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 5:17 am

I'll bet you're trying to throttle that little "spring peeper?" My treble drone is too loud, but I fixed it mostly by cutting the brass tongue narrower and narrower until I got the magic width that got it short and quiet. I've also taken a guitar string, big fat wound E strings etc, and cut them to fit top narrow bore and/or bottom narrow bore while not interfering with the slide, and then bending them in the middle fairly sharply, so it kinks and holds tight when you slide them inside.

They come out easily with the little piano wire hook I've made or with needle nosed pliers, or another wire/rod pushed through.

Royce

eskin · Post by **eskin** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 10:46 am

Wow, that guitar E string rush idea sure has helped quiet my baritone drone quite nicely. It was using nearly as much air as the other two drones combined, now is much better balanced. Thanks for the idea, I don't think it would have occured to me to rush a drone.

Michael

djm · Post by **djm** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 11:45 am

I would never rush a drone. I prefer to sneak up on them, all quiet like, preferably in a dark alley ....

djm

Royce · Post by **Royce** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 5:44 pm

djm wrote:I would never rush a drone. I prefer to sneak up on them, all quiet like, preferably in a dark alley ....

djm

If you don't rush a drone they'll just keep rambling on and on. Just tug on their coat tail and whisper that the bride and groom need to catch a boat or something in half an hour and get on with the reception.

Royce

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Drone too loud, how to quieten?

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